meditate on this

[aroraborealis]

What metaphors do you use for meditation?

For example, I've heard meditation described as standing on the bank of a river, where the river are thoughts and emotions, or as being an empty room with open windows, where the thoughts and feelings pass through (and hopefully don't linger).

What metaphor(s) describe the experience of meditation for you

Comments

[veek]

Most of my metaphors involve energy visualized as (sometimes sparkling) light.

(That's when I use metaphors. Often I don't. When I don't, my visualizations involve my own body, changing every moment.)

[lazyz]

Sitting in an ocean of air and feeling it go in and out of my body.

[blk]

Breathing colors in and out.

[clara_girl]

Watching a river flow by, and the thoughts are the leaves on the river, passing you by.

When I'm anxious or tense, the 2am-freakout-time, the thoughts are pieces of paper floating down and I shoot them with a bb-gun. :)

[beah]

The closest I get to meditation is shavasasa, and one image that has helped me is to imagine my body growing roots deep into the ground, spreading and flattening and deepening as calm descends on me and everything else melts down and out of me.

I also use the method of trying to relax one little body part at a time, from my toes up or my head down, and pushing everything extraneous out along that path as I go.